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The Lives of Ours: Laura Poitras’s Citizenfour
October 14, 2014
What do an Iraqi doctor-politician, a reformed jihadist who was once Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard, and Edward Snowden all have in common? Right now, someone somewhere is saying about all three: They belong in a cage. But not Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker behind a ...

The Fratty Wolf in Your Leftist Grandmother’s Clothing
October 14, 2014
I want to re-introduce you to someone you probably already know. You might recognize him at a party, or, more likely, at your Marxist reading group, where he’s always expounding on how identity politics detract from the real issues. Some iteration of him appeared in The Awl ...

Daily Bafflements
October 14, 2014
• Customers who have recently bought the iconic Hermès “Birkin” bags (for $20,000 or more) are returning them with complaints that they smell like marijuana, or skunks. The New York Post reports that Hermès is blaming a “badly tanned” batch of ...

Q&A: Mary O’Hara on Austerity and Inequality in the UK
October 10, 2014
Mary O’Hara, a longtime social justice reporter for the Guardian in London, is preparing for the stateside release of her book, Austerity Bites: A Journey to the Sharp End of Cuts in the UK, which was released across the pond this past spring. The timing of the book’s U.S. ...

Greenpeace Wins Again! But So Does Big Oil
October 10, 2014
If you’re big on the crossover between the youth demographic and the oil market—and who isn’t?—your day was made on Thursday when LEGO announced it was ending a partnership with Shell Oil and Ferrari following (although not because of, officials were careful to clarify) ...

Daily Bafflements
October 10, 2014
• In a past issue of The Baffler, David Graeber asked, where are all the flying cars? This week Elon Musk (he of autopilot electric car fame) expressed ambivalence about the idea: “If the sky was full of cars flying all over the place, it would affect how things ...

Gary Hart and Gonzo’s Ghost
October 09, 2014
A drugged-out shadow hangs over American political journalism: Hunter S. Thompson, spleen of the long ‘60s, id to Woodward and Bernstein’s tag team superego. When he put an end to things in 2005, he sucked his shtick right out the door with him. He was, as Matt Taibbi once ...

Daily Bafflements
October 09, 2014
• Today in Labor Strikes: teachers in Texas, Foxconn workers in China, airline cabin crews in New York who fear exposure to Ebola, and (maybe) Tube workers in London next week. • USA Discounters, a retailer that gained some less than favorable attention this summer for ...

Exile on H Street
October 08, 2014
I’ll begin by laying my cards on the table. I lived in Washington, D.C. from 2010 to 2013. For almost all that time, my apartment was either in Columbia Heights or Mt. Pleasant—neighborhoods that have recently seen an influx of upwardly mobile young people. Wherever I lived, ...

Daily Bafflements
October 08, 2014
• Amazon and its workers are heading to the Supreme Court today with a battle over whether workers should be paid for the time they spend waiting in the security lines they are required to go through after they finish their shifts. Former Amazon warehouse workers in Nevada ...

Silicon Valley’s Futuristic Mega-Zen Brain Machine
October 06, 2014
Biohacking, the hacking of biology, is a broad label that, in its most extreme form, can include DIY plant gene sequencing and the installation of magnets into your fingertips. But the term is also used to describe the habit of obsessively manipulating your diet and gobbling ...

Daily Bafflements
October 06, 2014
• For all the attention Virgin and Netflix have received recently for their “unlimited vacation” policies for employees, that’s certainly not a reality for most of the country’s workers. In fact, half of America hasn’t taken a single vacation day ...